Thursday, April 24, 2014

The Big Bang Theory Nearly Ruined My Collection!

Okay, not really. However, I'm sure using The Big Bang Theory in the title for this post might drive a bit of extra traffic my way. But The Big Bang Theory does factor into this post, actually. I'm not a total jerk. Let's start with some context, shall we?

Welcome new visitors! Maybe?

My wife loves The Big Bang Theory, to the point that she even watches the repeats on TBS, and she convinced me to get the Trivial Pursuit styled game about the show. We've played it once. And I won. I'll admit, that I watch the show because it can be funny at times. Not Kids in The Hall, Simpsons, or Futurama funny, but I've been known to chuckle whilst watching. At any rate, it's been my wife's introduction into the so-called "geek life". I'm the first person that both she and her family have ever met that freely admitted to still watching animated shows and buying toys. I'm a zoo attraction for them. Where was I?

Recently, my wife was watching an episode of The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon and Leonard received MISB Mego Star Trek transporters. It just so happened that on the same day, I had just gotten in a figure that I'd been pining for - eHobby's Deep Cover. Every instance of this figure that Id run across was MISB, as I guess people just don't want to open him for some reason. I was pretty pleased with myself and couldn't help but show him off to my wife.

See, honey, I can set goals and achieve them! Also, don't expect to see a review of him until like June. Backlog.

As I was showing off my new prize, I gathered together my tools - tweezers for decals, and a knife to cut the tape on the right flap. My wife then inquired about my actions. She then asked me if opening Deep Cover would hurt his value. Perplexed, I asked my wife what she was talking about. I told her that I opened up everything. The point of a toy is to play with it, after all. Then she started telling me about how she had just watched the previously mentioned episode of The Big Bang Theory. Crap.

Curse you fictional character!

I think I spent about a week working to convince my wife that Deep Cover just had to be opened. I don't remember working that hard to talk my wife into a second date when we started dating! Eventually, I just opened him and decaled him one night while watching basketball (Go MAVS!) My wife thinks I'm making a mistake, but it's my collection, so there really wasn't that much room for discussion. Which brings me to another point in this story/rant.

Thanks to the Toy Hunter, I'm constantly asked what my collection is worth, and not just from my wife. Friends will ask when they come over, as will my family members. It's something that I've never thought about, and frankly, I really don't care about. What I really care about is that I have a collection that I both love and enjoy. I think that the only time I ever think about price is when I'm buying a figure; actual value just never crosses my mind. I've mentioned before that I've given away plenty of toys that are valuable now just to have them enjoyed by a younger generation. Sure I have an account on Shmax, but that's so I can track what I'm spending and to halfheartedly see where my rank is among other collectors. Trying to actually move up in rank substantially would bankrupt me, but it's kind of fun just to see where I'm at.

I can't even imagine looking at collecting anything other than precious metals as some sort of investment where you should track the value of it. My collection is insured for about twice what I feel it's worth, but I'm just thinking about what it would take to replace everything should something catastrophic happen. The last time I worried about something I collected being worth something was 1993 or something, right before I stopped collecting comics until Dreamwave brought me back with their Transformer comics.

Seriously, this comic ruined comics for me for a decade.

I don't know, but I just bristle whenever someone starts throwing questions my way about value. Value is in the eye of the beholder. Do you think my kids think about how much their toys are worth when they get them? For all they care, I spent $1,000,000 on them. Try to take one of those away from them, and you'd think I was trying to take away their life. I'm pretty much the same about my collection, I suppose. Thinking about value when talking about my collection, in eyes, feels like I'm being expected to part with something that I've worked very hard to build.

Maybe I'm just being cranky. I do have a birthday a week from today, and I'm notoriously very cantankerous about getting older. Who knows, maybe a week after posting this, my feelings will change. Doubtful, but that possibility always exists.

1 comment:

I hate the idea that to some people, toy collections (or other types of collections) are actually just collections of dollar signs. Like you said, I only really care how much money something is worth when I'm either buying it or selling it, and the latter only when I'm doing some collection trimming, not engaging in some sort of risk-reward investment scheme.

It's why I'm always more skeptical of MISB collectors. I feel like it's impossible to enjoy a collection like that beyond some sort of nebulous dollar value...it's not something you can touch or experience, beyond staring at it, lest you destroy the "value." That's not real value to me.